Six
by aMUSEment345
Summary: Short multi-chapter, intra/post-ep for 15X09 / 15x10, 'Face Off'/ 'And In The End'. Several of his friends reach out to Reid in the aftermath of the explosion.
1. Chapter 1

_**A.N. This will be a short multi-chapter intra-ep for 15X09 and 15X10, 'Face Off/ And in the End'. The episodes left so many spaces to explore, they couldn't possibly fit into one story, so this will probably be the first of a few.**_

* * *

_**Six**_

Six. He couldn't get through a full thought without the number intruding. Six.

Six people had lost their lives in a blast he hadn't foreseen.

Six seconds before the blast, they'd all been alive.

_If I'd taken six seconds more to think it through…._

Six was the number of seconds before he'd been able to hear again after the explosion, six the number of times JJ had needed repeat to him what had happened. Six was the number of times he'd refused her plea that he receive medical attention.

But it had taken only one, loud, angry demand to be left alone, to send her to another seat on the plane.

For JJ, the facts were still sinking in, but the nuances had already risen to the surface.

_We lost Gideon over something like this. He was never the same, after, even after he was exculpated. The FBI found a way to forgive him, but Gideon never found a way to forgive himself._

She was worried that the same might happen with Reid.

_It wasn't his fault those people died. It was the whole team who made the profile, not just Spence. He was just the one who passed on the order. _

But she knew he wouldn't see it that way. More to the point, she knew it would have brought him back to thinking about Gideon, too. Of all of them on the plane, only JJ and Reid had worked with Gideon near in time to the events in Boston. Only the two of them had seen the extent of how it had affected him, the undermined confidence, the various attempts at compensation.

JJ sometimes wondered if Gideon had only come back to the team for Reid, if he'd only held it together as long as he had, because he'd had the young genius in tow. He had, after all, felt a need to explain himself only to Reid, when he'd left.

_Who would Spence explain himself to?_

Sadly, she realized, his choices had dwindled. Once upon a time, he might have told Hotch. Absent Hotch, he'd have told her. But things were different between them now, even in spite of their attempt at reconciliation weeks ago. They were more reserved with one another, more aware of the fact of their interaction, and thereby less free with the content.

_If he won't talk to me, maybe to Emily. Or Rossi, though I think he's mired in his own guilt about it. _

She wondered if maybe he would talk to Max, the woman he'd been seeing for a number of weeks now. But she doubted he would want to introduce her so quickly into the depth of grief and guilt that sometimes went with their job.

_But...maybe. She did meet Cat Adams, after all. But Max prevailed against Cat. She doesn't know what it feels like to lose a battle to evil. _

In the end, and in spite of not wanting to have her head bitten off, JJ decided that it had to be her. This was the kind of thing that had to be shared with someone in the trenches. But it was also the kind of thing that had to be shared in private, not with others only a few feet away.

_And it's the kind of thing that has to be shared with someone who loves you, even if we can't talk about that._

So she waited until the jet was on the ground, and they were gathering their things. Then she made her move.

"I don't think you should drive."

He started to shake his head, and then immediately had to hold it, because it hurt so much. JJ took advantage.

"See? Don't even think about arguing with me. I'm taking you home. Although….I don't suppose I could convince you to come home with me? You shouldn't be alone, after you've had a concussion."

He was annoyed, but aware enough to know she was right. Still, he would only meet her half way.

"All right, you can drive. But I want to go home. Alone."

"Spence…."

"JJ, please. I need to be alone."

Inwardly, JJ sighed. Once she'd made the decision to push him, she'd spent the rest of their time in the air anticipating this conversation. Whether they'd been communicating well lately or not, she had fourteen years of 'Spence' to draw upon.

"I don't like it, but I respect your decision. But that doesn't mean you're not going to hear from me, every two hours."

He made a feeble attempt to push back. "People with concussions need brain rest. That means they need more sleep, not less."

"Hmph. Aren't you the one who was telling Emily the guidelines had changed?"

"Not that much." Closing his eyes as she began backing out of her parking spot. At the sign of his fatigue, JJ nearly relented on her plan.

"You didn't really sleep on the plane, did you? We've got 45 minutes to your place. You can sleep now, if you want."

For the first time, Reid looked over and really took stock of her.

"You're exhausted, too. And you didn't sleep on the plane, either."

She almost shrugged it off, but then recognized an opportunity.

"I couldn't. Too much to sort through, you know?"

He did. "I can't even focus long enough to start. I …" Cutting himself off.

She chanced a glance in his direction.

"You what?"

"Never mind."

"Spence, please. Even if you don't want to talk about it, I do. I _need_ to. Six FBI agents died there today. And, for a few seconds, I thought you had, too."

Those words hit home, and he relented. If he couldn't do it for himself, he could do it for her. But she wasn't going to like what he had to say.

"I should have."

"What?!"

"I made the call. I told them to breach. Why should they have paid the price for that, and not me?"

She should have anticipated it. She'd known he would be feeling guilt. But she'd thought it would be guilt over the lives lost, not guilt over having survived. Memories flashed into her brain, about the guilt he'd felt years ago, when he'd lost the woman he'd loved, and wished it had been him. Back then, he'd gotten so mired in grief and guilt that JJ had worried it would suffocate him.

She wasn't about to let that happen a second time. But this wasn't a conversation she could have while she was driving. It required attention and focus. She needed to see him, and to have him see her. She needed his eyes. So she slowed the vehicle, and turned into an empty parking lot.

"What happened? Why are we stopping?"

She turned off the engine, slipped off her restraint, and turned to face him.

"Because we need to talk."

"I don't… I can't, JJ. Not now."

_Probably not ever._

She studied him for a few seconds, strategizing.

"Okay, then 'I' need to talk. You can just listen."

When he didn't refuse, she continued.

"It was horrific. Never mind whether or not we got it wrong…" Purposely representing the role of the whole team in creating the profile. "It's a devastating thing to even think about, let alone to witness. It was just like….."

She stopped abruptly, her words having gotten ahead of her thoughts. When her thoughts caught up, she felt stricken.

_How have I gotten so good at denial?_

Her silence elicited a response from Reid.

"Are you okay?" Looking at her in consternation, her features telling him she'd gone to a place of psychic pain.

"It's just…. I didn't even think, until this minute. And then it flashed! The Humvee…"

He knew immediately what she meant. "Afghanistan."

The place where she'd been injured in an explosion that had killed several soldiers, and taken from her an unborn child.

She was still processing it. "How could I not have remembered?"

He knew, because he was currently experiencing the very reason.

"You lost consciousness. You don't have a memory of the actual explosion. Just the aftermath."

Which was bad enough, for Reid. But not as bad as the certainty that it had all been preventable.

_If not the explosion, then the loss of life._

As addled as she was beginning to feel about this, Jennifer Jareau was also one of the most practical people either of them knew, and she called upon that practicality now. But she had to go deep to find that trait in the moment.

_If this brings out my PTSD, I'll deal with it. Right now, I'm worried about Spence, because guilt is too heavy a burden to bear._

She adjusted herself in her seat, to better see his face.

"I'll be okay. It's you I'm worried about right now. Did you realize you were talking to yourself on the plane? I heard you. You kept asking how you'd gotten it wrong."

"I did."

"We all did, Spence. We did this together, as a team. We worked the profile together."

He wasn't having it.

"But you disagreed. You thought it was too dangerous."

"For Rossi to meet with him! That's what was too dangerous! It was you who thought she wouldn't be able to kill him, remember? You had to convince the rest of us."

"But I never profiled that she would want to die with him!"

The vehemence of his self-rebuke set his head to pounding even harder, and he had to hold it for relief. None of which was lost on JJ.

"Listen, we can argue about this another time. Right now, I really think I should get you to a hospital."

"You promised to take me home."

"But, Spence, I'm worried about you. You have a concussion, and you wouldn't even let the EMTs look at you."

"They had a lot of other people to look at, who were hurt much worse than I was. I can handle a concussion."

"But…"

"JJ, I trusted you when you said you would bring me home. Will you please do that, now?"

He'd pulled out his trump card, whether wittingly or unwittingly, and she could do nothing but comply.

_Maybe I'm not the one for this. Maybe he does need someone else. Maybe Max. Or…._

An idea came to mind. Once it was filed away, she buckled herself in again, and started the car.

"I'm sorry. I'll take you home. But I'm serious about being worried. I want you to promise me that you'll go to the doctor if your head still hurts in the morning."

Hearing a note of distress in her voice, he looked over to her apologetically.

"I'm sorry, too. And, if it will make you feel better, I promise."

She flashed him a quick smile.

"It will."

They rode in silence for several miles, until Reid had a question for JJ.

"Do you remember? With Gideon?"

She nodded. "I do."

"I was just finishing at the academy, then. I knew him, of course, because he'd recruited me, but I hadn't worked with him yet. Not in the field."

"I came to the team right after, when Hotch took over. He was the one who thought a liaison would be a good idea."

"So, you don't know, either. What he was like before, I mean."

She glanced over to Reid, tempted to stop the car again.

"I don't. But I heard he was different, after. Maybe a little more driven."

That resonated with Reid. "He almost never walked. It was like he ran, everywhere he went. I thought it was just how he acted in the field. But maybe it was something else."

She'd been ready to give up on having this conversation, and now here it was. JJ recognized that she would need to tread carefully.

"I guess 'driven' was a healthy response, considering. I mean, it allowed him to keep working."

"But he didn't. He didn't keep working. He left."

Which was the core of her concern about Reid, and JJ felt her pulse accelerating as they approached it.

_Please keep me from saying the wrong thing!_

She took what she hoped was a breath of inspiration before responding.

"There were a lot of other things that happened, Spence. Not just Boston."

A quick glance over at him told her that he'd already begun taking mental inventory of the events leading up to Gideon's departure, and her 'Spence antennae' told her when he'd reached the fact of his own trauma, and the role Gideon might have played in it.

She spoke again, as though he'd recounted his memories aloud.

"He felt responsible for every one of those things that happened, even if he'd asked to have Hotch take over the team."

That got a reaction from her best friend.

"He _asked_ for Hotch to step in? I thought…"

"It wasn't disciplinary. Hotch told me that, when I started. It was like he wanted to make sure I understood, so it wouldn't affect my relationship with him. Like he wanted to make sure I still respected him. Gideon didn't tell you?"

Reid shook his head. "He didn't explain himself to me, back then. Everything was about the process. He didn't explain himself to me at all, until that letter."

She remembered, and it was what worried her. On the plane, she'd heard Reid repeating the words Gideon had written in the letter, the ones he'd read to her again, from memory, after Gideon died. '_I just don't understand any of it anymore_.'

"Do you remember how much you worried about him, then? That's how much I'm worried about you."

Reid was quiet for another long stretch of road, and she couldn't quite tell if he was thinking, or feeling, or ailing. Until he spoke again.

"Thank you. And I heard you, before. It's just that the fact that it wasn't only me doesn't mean much. It doesn't change the fact that those six families are grieving tonight. And it doesn't change the fact that I didn't see it."

"None of us saw it, Spence. Not until that satchel was found, and that was just a fluke. I mean, if you think about it another way, there might have been more agents killed, if we hadn't been able to call it off at the last second."

"_You _called it off."

"Because I took the call! That's the only reason."

There was something odd about this conversation, something circular, which made it stand out from nearly every other conversation she'd ever had with him. Later, with the perfect vision of hindsight, she would see it as an indicator, and one that she'd sorely missed.

Their last exchange had carried them the rest of the distance to the street outside Reid's apartment. JJ pulled over, put the vehicle in park, and turned off the engine. Which was Reid's cue to protest.

"I'm fine. You don't need to come in."

She tried. "I can make you tea, and make sure you're comfortable."

"I'm okay by myself. I think I'm just going to lay down, anyway."

She'd expected her offer to be rebuffed. Turning to him once more, she reached for his hands.

"Listen, Spence. I know it's still a little weird between us, and I'll take the blame for that. But I hope you can hear me when I say that I love you, and I care what happens to you. I care what you think, and I care what you feel, and I care if someone is coming down on you, even when that person is you. I'm not going to let my best friend be lost to something that was _not_ his fault, and _was _beyond his control. So, please don't insist on carrying this by yourself. It happened, and it's horrendous, and we'll find out soon enough exactly what caused it. But, whatever it was, it belongs to all of us, or none of us. Not to you. Not only to you."

He loved her for that, and for so many other things. But she simply didn't understand, as he did, that he always carried the greater responsibility, as the price of his giftedness.

"I hear you." _I don't agree, but I hear you_. "Thanks."

As he released his seat belt, and took hold of his messenger bag, she made one more offer.

"Sure you don't want me to get you settled? I know how to open a mean can of chicken soup."

He smiled. "That's tempting, but no, thanks. You went through something today, too. Go home and hug Will and the boys."

She returned his smile. "I will. And you're welcome to some little boy hugs any time you want them. I can tell you from experience that they are mighty healing."

"I'll bet. Thanks, JJ. For the ride…and everything."

"You're welcome. Rest well, Spence."

She waited until she could see him starting up the staircase to his apartment before she drove off. As she did, she received a text message. And then another, and another. A disembodied voice from her vehicle read them to her, and was interrupted in the process by the arrival of several more texts.

Six was the total number of messages JJ received from her female co-workers, insisting she join them to let down from the extreme tension of this day.

Six was the number of times she told the boys she loved them, after she'd told Will she would be home late.

Six was the number of bottles of wine opened at Garcia's that night.

Six was the number of seconds it took Reid to realize that he was bleeding from his nose.

Six was the number of steps he took into his apartment before his legs buckled, and he fell to the floor.

Six was the number of seconds he had to think, 'Am I dying?' before he stopped thinking at all.


	2. Chapter 2

_**Six**_

_**Chapter 2**_

"Hey, there!"

Emily forced some brightness into her tone, though the image of the figure in the bed had taken her aback. She'd seen him ill before, and distressed, but she'd never seen Spencer Reid looking quite so depleted.

"Emily."

At least there was some strength to his voice. She crossed over to the bedside, bending to give him a little buss on the cheek before pulling up a chair.

"How are you feeling?" Going through the motion of polite inquiry, despite knowing how likely he was to minimize.

"Well," he croaked, "I have a giant headache. But otherwise, I'm fine."

Immediately, a memory flashed into Emily's mind, of another conversation, nearly a decade ago, when a much younger Reid had confessed his headaches to her. He'd not told the others, he'd said, because he hadn't wanted to be babied. In very many ways, that conversation had both defined their friendship and guided its course.

_Even if I wasn't really present to him, that day, because Doyle was already pulling my life apart. But it stuck with me, that he would tell me, and not the others. It was a gift, of sorts._

His relationship with her had always been a bit different from the ones he'd had with the others. Maybe it was because he'd already had his feet under him by the time she'd met him. She'd been the newbie, and he the experienced, albeit easily ten years younger, BAU supervisory special agent, even if she'd had far more experience, much of which was classified. Maybe it was because they'd found common ground in their intellects and love for culture and foreign films. Maybe it was because, on the many occasions he'd needed it, she'd found a way to be supportive and sympathetic toward him without mothering him.

Whatever it was, she'd found a way to preserve the mature aspect of their relationship despite the several entrances and exits she'd made to and from his life. Most recently, as unit chief, she'd had to navigate the balance between maintaining her friendships while also inserting a protective distance between herself and her team members. But she intended no such distance in this moment. One of her dearest friends had almost died, and she was going to celebrate the fact of his life. Quietly, because he had a headache.

"So, did Garcia tell you? We got him."

"Garcia?"

"Yes, Penelope. She was here, with you and your mother. I thought she would tell you.''

"My mom was here?" He looked puzzled. "I thought she was part of the in-between."

This conversation had become so confusing that Emily began to wonder if_ she_ had suffered a brain injury.

"What are you talking about? What's 'the in-between'?"

His reply was non-responsive. "Why was my mother here? Was she upset?"

Not able to tolerate the thought that Diana had been subjected to seeing him so severely injured.

_Not at this stage of her life. What would be the point of putting her through something like that?_

There had been a faux pas, and Emily realized she would have to explain it to him.

"Firstly, yes, she was here, and she was no doubt upset at first. I'm sorry for that, because it shouldn't have happened. But she left happy because, even if you don't remember it, you woke up and spoke to her, before Garcia took her home."

He was a bit perturbed not to have preserved that short-term memory.

"I don't remember Garcia being here, either. I don't remember much before you came in. Now I'm not sure I'll even remember this conversation." But he did remember her words of a few seconds ago. "Why was my mother here?"

"JJ said it was because they asked her if she was family, and she had to tell them she wasn't, officially, that you had a mother."

"JJ was here, too?"

Emily gave him a regretful smile. "You really don't remember anything, do you?"

He started to shake his head, but the pain stopped him. "The last real thing I remember is coming into my apartment, and thinking…..thinking…" He had to give up. "I don't even remember what I was thinking."

"Did anyone tell you how you got to the hospital?"

"I've barely spoken with anyone. Not that I can remember, anyway. Just one of the doctors, but she was paged away."

His old friend pondered a moment, not wanting to reveal more than he could handle. But then she remembered who she was talking to, and the certainty that he would want to know everything.

"Okay, so. When we realized we might all be in danger, I sent JJ and Garcia over to your apartment, because you'd missed the morning meeting."

"What danger? How long was I unconscious?"

Emily realized her error and backtracked to tell him about the Chameleon having apparently survived the explosion, and how they profiled that he might target the team.

"That's it! That's what I couldn't remember, just before. I realized he must have survived, and escaped!"

She smiled to see a remnant of his usual look of discovery. "Well, you were right. He did. And so I sent JJ and Garcia over to check on you, and bring you in to the BAU. Except it didn't quite work out like that."

He tried to process the information, and the implications, but his brain wasn't quite functioning at its usual speed.

"So, do they think I was unconscious the whole time, since my last memory? Or do they think I lost the memories of the rest of the night?"

Emily only knew what JJ thought, and the guilt she was holding over having been too distracted by her fellow female team members and several glasses of wine. But it would do no one any good to bring that up, and since they didn't technically know exactly when he'd lost consciousness, she kept that part vague.

"I don't think anyone knows. They just saw you on the floor, and then you had a seizure."

He was aware of that much. "Dr. Kiyomura told me, a little while ago. Apparently, I had several of them. That's what made her consider surgery, but she apparently talked it over with someone, and they decided to wait."

Emily smiled at him. "I'm glad they did. I'd hate for that handsome face to be surrounded by some big, ugly bandage." When he gave her a responsive smile, she continued. "I spoke with Dr. Kiyomura. I guess they didn't quite understand, when they learned you had a next of kin. JJ was pretty shaken up by finding you the way she did, as you might imagine. So it wasn't until she was on her way back to the BAU that she thought to call me. She realized I would have taken over from Hotch as your proxy."

"Are you saying they were bringing my mom in to make decisions?"

Even more upset that Diana might have been taxed with something so beyond her ability, and the effect it might have had on her.

"Well, yes, they did. But we set that straight pretty quickly. I told them to do what they thought best in their expert opinion. But then I called our favorite doctor."

He knew immediately who she meant. "But Dr. Kimura isn't a neurosurgeon."

"Granted. But she knows the best. So, I gave permission to release the information, and she made arrangements for your studies to be looked at by two people she thinks highly of, and everyone came down on the side of waiting it out. Something about pressures not being too high, and no active bleeding."

The terms might have meant little to her, but they apparently meant something to him, even in his debilitated state.

"Most of my intracranial bleeding probably happened near to the time of the explosion, but the edema happened gradually after that, and is probably what caused the rest of my symptoms. With no active bleeding, and with the pressure remaining stable, it was better to wait."

"If you say so. And, since it's you saying so,"…_since it's you saying anything_, _at all, thank God!_ "….I'm good with it."

Reid had a question for her.

"What happened to the rest? Has anyone else died? I know there were some others who were badly hurt."

JJ had given Emily notice about Reid's sense of guilt about the casualties, although there had hardly been need for it. Of course, he would have felt guilty. He wouldn't have been Reid, otherwise.

The unit chief kept a steady gaze on her friend as she responded to him.

"There have been no more deaths from the explosion, and the doctors say that they expect everyone to make a full recovery. Including you."

Making a point. It hadn't just been 'other agents' injured.

"I'm sorry."

"There's nothing to be sorry about, Spencer. The team made a profile, and it evolved, as it usually does."

"But I sent those people to their deaths!"

Emily knew to tread carefully.

"You transmitted an order, which I had already approved. It wasn't your fault."

He started to shake his head again, and had to immediately stop.

"I should have seen it. I should have…"

Emily leaned in, and placed a hand on his arm.

"Spencer Reid, I think you know how much I love you, and how much I respect your intellect. But, even if you don't, I realize that your mind is not infallible, and I realize that you are human. This wasn't your doing. I was the unit chief in charge. Let me own it."

Reid wasn't any more inclined to let Emily to feel the guilt than she was, him. And he realized the potential cost to her.

"You can't. It might mean…" He cut himself off, easily able to read the news in her expression. "It's already happened, hasn't it? You've lost the directorship."

She tried to shrug it off. "They wouldn't exactly have let me move FBI headquarters to Denver anyway, right?"

"Emily, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. If only…." Then, her words penetrated. "Wait, are you moving to Denver?"

There had been so much talk of change lately, and it had left him feeling unmoored, even before his brain injury. Emily had been shortlisted for director of the FBI, and simultaneously entertained the idea of moving to Denver to be with Andrew Mendoza. Garcia had just recently announced being recruited by a nonprofit. And JJ had been invited to become the leader of the FBI field office in New Orleans.

"Nothing's definite, and nothing is imminent. I promise you, you'll be among the first to know if I decide to leave the BAU. Can't have one of my best friends finding out through the office grapevine, can I?"

Reid was quiet. So quiet, that she felt a need to draw him out.

"Tell me what you're thinking."

He gathered himself before responding. "I'm thinking that change is inevitable. And terrible."

She grinned. This was the first real sign of the Reid she knew and loved.

"Truer words, handsome. Truer words."

He returned a small smile, and a request.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Anything, you know that."

"Well, maybe not anything. Maybe not _this_ thing. But…. when I was unconscious, I had an experience."

Suddenly, it clicked with her. "The 'in-between'?"

He nodded, which was considerably less painful than moving his head back and forth.

"I saw some people, and I had full conversations with them. And it came back to me….. Do you remember when we had that case where the unsub was trying to find out about the afterlife, by bringing his victims to near-death, and then reviving them?"

She did. How could she not have? It was when she'd admitted the terror of her own near-death experience, and learned of Reid's, for the first time.

"Yes."

"Well, I was wondering…..what was it like for you? If you don't mind telling me, of course. I mean, I remember that you said it wasn't like what I experienced when Hankel tried to kill me. I'd just seen a bright light, and felt a benevolent presence, but you…"

"I had a very different experience." Clearly not enthused about sharing it.

"You don't have to tell me. I'm sorry if I shouldn't have asked."

"But you did. Why? Do you want to tell me what happened, in the 'in-between'?"

Reid had mixed feelings about that. Part of what he'd experienced had been wicked, and part amazingly wonderful and yet simultaneously painful. And intimate. The kind of intimate that he was reluctant to share. So started with generalities.

"I saw people I knew, who had died. Some of them were kind, and encouraging. But one of them taunted me."

"Hmph. Tell me about it. Doyle wasn't the only really bad guy I dealt with in my past. He was just the worst. "

Reid grabbed onto her words. "So, you had that experience, too? People who had died before you, coming to meet you? To guide you?"

"I wouldn't exactly say I felt guided. More like the word you used, 'taunted'. I felt taunted, but not guided. But then, none of the people I met when I was in the 'in-between' as you call it, had ever really loved me."

"Then none of them could have ever really known you." Absurdly feeling a need to defend her to her demons.

She grinned. "And that's why I love you."

His shy smile emerged, ever less shy over time. "I think I count on that."

Emily was moved to reach for his hand. "Tell me about it. What happened to you?"

He seemed to be taking a long time to gather his thoughts.

_Or maybe to decide if he wants to tell me at all._

"I'm sorry. You don't have to."

"No," he was quick to reply. "I think I want to. Maybe I need to."

She settled back, still holding on to his fingers. "Whenever you're ready."

"It's just…it was different from before, from what happened with Hankel. Maybe because that was sudden, and this was more gradual, I don't know. But I remember it vividly, even more vividly than I remember coming here to the hospital, or Garcia or my mother being here, before. Like it was more real than reality, you know?"

She did, unfortunately. Her own experience had required a great deal of ethanol therapy, for how realistic it had been.

"I remember coming off the elevator, into the BAU. And I saw Gideon, and Hotch, and I started to call out to them, because somehow I knew I was in trouble, and I thought they could help. And then I saw Morgan, and Elle. Greenaway. I don't think you ever met her."

"No, but I've heard about her."

"I even saw myself. It was like I was watching a movie. In fact, I'm pretty sure it was an exact replication of something that really happened."

"The product of an eidetic memory."

"Probably. But then….I thought I saw Garcia, and I followed her into her tech room, but…when she turned around, she was Chief Strauss."

"Wow. Was that the nightmare part?"

"No, she was actually pretty comforting. She was the angel figure, I think."

Emily anticipated the dichotomy. "If Strauss was the angel, I can't even imagine who was the devil."

"Foyet."

Emily's brows went up at the totally unexpected name. "Foyet?"

"I know. I've thought about it, and I think he was just the epitome of evil to me. I mean, I've never been able to find anything in his background to explain his behavior. Nothing to…."

"Nothing to humanize him. I get it. I think he might have hurt us more…the BAU, I mean….than anyone else."

They both knew what she meant. George Foyet's evil machinations had inflicted unthinkable damage upon their unit chief, the man who'd led them, and taught them, and held them together, for better than a decade.

"Exactly. That's the only thing I could come up with. But then….then I saw Maeve."

Emily hadn't been with the team, then. But she'd heard about the woman who'd claimed Spencer Reid's heart, and the tragedy that had ensued. She'd been devastated for him, and for the devastation she'd been sure it had wreaked upon him.

"Was that…"

"It was wonderful. Amazing. Painful. But…..I think it helped me let go."

Emily cast a fond look his way. "You were still holding on to her." A statement, not a question.

"I think I was. Maybe that's why it's been hard for me to get involved with anyone else."

"I thought you'd met someone…"

He went introspective for a long moment, in a way that puzzled her. Emily had no way of knowing the recent complexities in his relationships, but she was seeing the effects of them.

"I did. And before…. I guess I wasn't really open to a relationship, not totally. Not until I made my choice."

"Choice?"

"Maeve posed it as a choice. She said I needed to decide which path to follow, and it was obvious that one path was 'life' and the other 'death'. And…..and I still don't know why, and I'm not even sure I did, but..."

"But you chose life."

"That's the thing, I'm not even sure I did. I mean, maybe. I did feel like I was saying goodbye to Maeve, but, really, all I did was ...was..._oh_."

"What?"

"My mom. I heard my mom's voice, and I immediately turned around. She was here!"

Emily smiled at the not-quite-recovered memory. "Yes, she was. And she called you back."

His own smile was wry. "I think it was more that I thought she needed me."

"She does, Spencer. For as long as you have her. We all need you."

He heaved a great breath. "Well, I guess you have me."

Something about his tone made her ask.

"Are you not happy about it?"

He looked down, and studied their clasped hands.

"I was happy with Maeve, for that little time we had. But then, she asked me about the things that I love, and I rattled off a whole list to her, right away. Which told me that I still love those things. Maeve has been gone for years, and I still have things in my life that make me happy. People who make me happy. People I love."

Emily squeezed his hand. "Maybe she was telling you that it's okay for you to still be happy without her."

He nodded, slowly. "I think she was. It's funny, I think there's been a part of me that felt like, if I moved on, if I found someone else, or even just entered into some new phase of my life, that it would be disrespectful of her. Like it would mean that she hadn't mattered. But...I feel like she was telling me it would be okay. That I could move on, and still bring my love for her with me."

"She freed you of a burden you've never needed to carry. What a remarkable woman."

Speaking of Maeve as though she was still in the present. Aware that, for Spencer, she was.

"I wish you could have met her."

"Me too."

"You would have loved her, and I think she would have loved you."

"I do love her, because she gave one of my best friends a priceless gift." _The freedom to live his life._

"I'm sorry if that didn't happen to you, when you had your experience. I'm sorry if there was no one to encourage you to choose life."

"Hmph. Well, they didn't exactly _invite_ me to do it. I think it's more like I came back to spite them. Whatever works, I'm here, right?"

"I'm glad."

"Me, too." Her phone had vibrated during the exchange, telling her their time together had to end.

"I've got to get back. Meeting with the bigwigs. Seems they're not happy about my latest budget request."

"What did you ask for?"

"A new jet."

"Why do we need a new jet?"


	3. Chapter 3

_**A.N. First things first-I hope you are all well and coping with our current reality, and I hope that this will provide you with a few minutes of thinking about something else. Many of you realize, from my other stories, that I have a background in medicine. That background causes me to promise you that, if you are not practicing strict social isolation, I will personally come and nail shut the doors to your home, with you inside.**_

_**Secondly, I am somewhat tickled that one of the proposed treatments for coronavirus is the one Reid gave to JJ in 'Before I Sleep'. But only somewhat, because this is serious business.**_

_**Lastly-a number of people have asked if Max will make an appearance in this story, and the answer is 'no'. Maybe one day she'll show up in another one of my stories, but I don't know her well enough yet. I do think I know Spencer well enough to say that I don't think he would pursue any new relationship quickly, nor without some element of deep connection, and I think this is way too soon for that. **_

_**For those looking for Max, the good news is that other authors don't feel as I do, and are already writing that relationship. So, look around, you'll find her. Just not here.**_

* * *

_**Six **_

_**Chapter 3**_

"I hope that dream was worthy of the smile on your face."

Reid tried to blink himself fully awake, but his recovering brain wouldn't quite cooperate. It took him a full thirty seconds to realize that the voice had not been a part of the dream, and another fifteen to fully focus his eyes.

"Rossi?"

"In the flesh. The wounded flesh."

Finally, the scene penetrated the fog that shrouded Spencer Reid's brain. David Rossi was with him in his hospital bed, seated in a wheelchair.

"What…..are you hurt? What happened to you?" Mentally trying to reach back to his visit with Emily, wondering if he'd forgotten the information, or simply spaced out on that portion of their conversation.

"Same as you. I took one for the team."

Rossi hadn't needed the briefing he'd gotten from Emily. He'd already known that Reid would chastise himself over the fact of the explosion, and its deadly results. He'd chosen his words accordingly.

"But… you were shot?"

"By Everett Lynch." Adding, when the name didn't seem familiar to Reid, "The Chameleon."

Reid's memory began awakening with the rest of him. "He got away. He escaped from the explosion."

"Yes, he did."

"So how….."

"He uh…. I guess you could say that he showed himself again."

Reid slowly parsed the words, and realized they held a story.

"Tell me." An undercurrent of urgency in the two words, as he recalled Emily telling him that they'd profiled the danger posed to the team.

So Rossi recounted the tale, attempting to gloss over the danger posed to his wife, and focusing on the triumph of the team.

"So I rolled down the steps, leaving Everett Lynch to his fate."

Reid didn't quite understand. "If he was a pilot, what kept him from just taking off, after he shot you?" Then, remembering something Emily had told him, "Wait. Is that why we need new jet? Did he crash it?"

Knowing that Garcia had been with Reid at the time, and that he'd been visited by Emily Prentiss since, Rossi was surprised at the question.

_The jet gets blown up and no one thinks it's worthy of mention?_

"No, Spencer, he didn't crash the jet, and I have no idea if he actually knew how to fly the damn thing. Apparently no one has told you that the jet was blown up. "

"Blown up? How? Like the bunker?"

Realizing, at the words, that he didn't know exactly how the bunker had blown up, either.

Neither did Rossi. But he knew about the jet.

"The jet was blown up by someone we both know and love. JJ."

Reid began to wonder if this whole conversation wasn't part of the 'in between'.

"JJ.. JJ blew up the jet? Did she get hurt?"

Anxiety infused his tone, as he became suspicious about why his best friend hadn't yet visited him at the hospital.

"No, no. I mean, yes, she blew up the jet. But, no, she's fine."

Reid took a few seconds to digest what he'd been told.

"JJ blew up the jet?"

"It was the only way to get Lynch. He was about to take off, and we couldn't let him escape again. So, she shot a flare at the trail of gasoline, and….boom."

A small smile crept across Reid's face as he pictured the event happening. "JJ blew up the jet. Wow."

"Yeah, wow."

"But…are you sure she's okay?"

"She's fine. I think she's a little buried in paperwork at the moment, but physically, she's fine. No need to worry."

Rossi watched as Reid's features melted into relief.

"You do worry about her, don't you?"

Probing on something he'd wondered about for a while.

"I worry about everybody on the team. Like you."

Casting his eyes in the direction of the bandage Rossi sported on his leg.

"Like me. Or maybe, a little more?"

Reid wasn't sure where this was going, and he worried that his brain wasn't quite up to protecting the knowledge he shared with JJ alone. So he made his best attempt at deflecting.

"I saw Strauss."

Rossi shook his head at the non sequitur. "What?"

"I had a ….an experience. When I was unconscious. It wasn't really a dream, but … I'm not actually sure what to call it. But I saw a lot of people that I knew. Some of them had already died, and one of them was Erin Strauss."

For a long time afterward, Reid would remember the series of expressions that appeared in succession across Rossi's face. Surprise. Regret. Curiosity. Wariness. Sorrow. Wistfulness.

"Tell me."

Having gotten here as a means of diversion, Reid wasn't quite prepared for the command. But, he reasoned, Strauss had actually played a benign role in the 'in between', and there was no reason to keep it hidden from the man who had once loved her.

"I saw her at the BAU. She was in Garcia's space. In fact, at first, I thought she _was_ Garcia, until she turned around. She was….I think she was an 'angel' figure. She consoled me, she made me feel like everything would be all right."

"Was…was she….happy?"

It struck Reid, that Rossi should be so immediately accepting of a phenomenon that he himself, who'd experienced it, was still struggling to understand.

_Maybe it's faith? Maybe I don't have enough. Or any, really._

Surprised to realize that he was feeling a little wistful himself, at the fact.

"I don't really know how to answer that. I mean, she was encouraging. She told me it would be all right. And she smiled. So, happy? Maybe. I guess I can say that she didn't seem _un_happy."

Rossi looked toward the window, his gaze settled on the middle distance. Reid wondered if he was trying to conjure his own image of the woman who had played such an important role in his life. Finally, he spoke.

"I hope so. She had a hard life. She deserved some happiness."

Reid nodded. Erin Strauss had been a thorn in the side of the BAU for much of his tenure with the unit, but, in the end, and after she'd succeeded in recovery, she'd proven to be more of an ally than anyone had ever expected.

_She was complex, I guess. Just like everyone else._

Rossi recovered himself enough to be curious. "Who else did you see?"

"A lot of people. Gideon. Hotch. Morgan. Even Elle. But only a few of them could see me. Like Chief Strauss, and…" His voice trailed off.

Rossi didn't exactly need to call upon his profiling skills to notice Reid's behavior.

"Who was it, Spencer?"

"Foyet." A small voice.

The dark Italian brows raised. "Foyet?! Why Foyet?"

Reid shrugged. "I don't know. The only thing I can think is that he pretty much embodied evil for me. What he did to Hotch…and the team….I think he was supposed to be my 'devil' figure."

"Hmph. Well, your subconscious got two right. What did Foyet do?"

"He took me from the BAU to my apartment, so I could see myself lying on the floor, dying. But…well, obviously, he was wrong."

Rossi gave a small smile. "Obviously."

"And then…." Remembering the advice Rossi had given to him at the time, Reid was grateful for the chance to share the last part of his 'in between' experience. "And then….she was sitting there, on the couch, in my apartment, just like she belonged there."

"Who? Oh…" Rossi's own memory bringing him back. "Maeve."

Reid colored in spite of himself, and he nodded. "It was Maeve. She looked a little different from before…well, from the one time I saw her…but it was her. I would have known her by her words and her spirit, anyway."

"You spoke with her." More a statement, than a question.

"For a long time. We went…" Stopping, trying to remember, exactly. "We went to the cemetery. But I don't know how we got there. We were just kind of….there."

Rossi read his young friend's expression. "It wasn't reality, Spencer. It doesn't have to make sense."

He almost immediately regretted the words, when he heard Reid's response.

"It was real! It felt real. I mean, I know I'm not dead, and they are, so it couldn't have been real, but….it just….it felt like it. I feel like there was something about it that was real."

David Rossi reached back into his past, and deep into the ever-more-faint theological underpinnings of his youth.

"You were in purgatory."

"I was thinking 'limbo'. You know, where you get to decide."

Rossi disagreed. "You don't get to decide in limbo. You just hang out."

"So, where do you get to decide? Because Maeve told me I needed to decide."

Which was an interesting piece of news to Rossi. "So, you're saying you decided to live?"

Reid told him the same thing he'd told Emily. "I'm not sure I ever decided. I just heard my name called, and I came back."

"Who called you?"

"My mother."

Rossi had been briefed on Diana Reid's having been inappropriately been called in to the hospital. Hearing Reid's words, he suddenly wasn't so sure Diana's involvement had been inappropriate.

_Or inadvertent._

"You heard your mother's voice, and you came back?"

Reid elaborated. "It was more than that. I mean, I think I'd already decided. I remember that I hugged Maeve, as though I was saying goodbye to her, before I heard my mother. But I don't…..I don't…." Turning puzzled, troubled eyes to the older man. "….I don't know why. I don't know how I decided. I'm not even sure that I did."

Rossi stared him down. "So, why are you here, then?"

Reid shook his head. "I'm not sure I should be. There are six other FBI agents who aren't here."

Bringing them to the main reason why Rossi had sought him out.

"They were lost in the line of duty, Spencer, just as you could have been."

"But I'm the one who gave the order."

Rossi let that hang in the air a few moments, as he pondered his response. Reid had just brought him back more than forty years.

"I heard those same words, once, from an army lieutenant. I was lying on a gurney next to him. We were both waiting to be med evac'd out, from two different firefights. He'd lost four men in some little good-for-nothing village that they thought had been overrun by Vietcong. They lost the men, and the village, and he was only alive because one of his privates had run up to pull him behind the lines, after he was shot."

"Pulled him back?"

Rossi smiled at his younger colleague, pleased that he'd picked up on it.

"Exactly. The lieutenant hadn't ordered from behind. He'd been part of the charge."

Reid wasn't quite there yet.

"But he still lost the men."

"They died, Spencer. But he didn't lose them. He led them."

"But…"

Rossi cut him off. "Listen, my young friend. You wouldn't be in that hospital bed if you hadn't been right up there in the thick of it. Stop beating up on yourself. I don't have to tell you about survivor syndrome, do I?"

As though he'd been served an academic question, Reid responded, "Survivor syndrome is guilt over having survived something that others didn't."

"Exactly. But giving me a definition isn't the same as recognizing when it's happening to you."

The young man in the bed heaved a great sigh. "I remember seeing it in Gideon, but I didn't understand it, then. Not completely. I thought he should be grateful that it hadn't been him, and happy that he'd caught Bale."

"I wasn't around for it, but what I heard through the FBI grapevine was that he lost his confidence after that. Wasn't much good for anything."

Studying Reid, for his response, hoping not to be disappointed.

"That's not true! He came back from it, and he brought me with him, and he taught me pretty much everything!"

Satisfied with the progress, the master led his pupil to the point.

"But he wasn't the same, right?"

Reid deflated. "I don't know. I knew him before, but I hadn't been in the field with him."

"Well, that's what I heard. Still, if you're saying he passed his knowledge on to you, that's something."

Reid's voice was quiet. "It was everything, to me."

There was a long pause before Rossi responded. "Exactly."

Reid looked up at him. "What does that mean?"

"It means that you took a hit, physically and emotionally, but you're still a functioning, contributing member of a pretty damn good team." He leaned forward in his chair, emphasizing his point. "Don't let him win, Spencer. Gideon beat Bale again, _after_ Boston. He wasn't defeated. Don't let yourself be defeated, either."

A long silence ensued, made comfortable by the respect and affection shared between the two men. Reid studied his hands, and Rossi studied Reid. In doing so, he noticed the younger man smile to himself, before he lifted his head to direct a question.

"JJ blew up the jet?"


	4. Chapter 4

_**A.N. At this rate, there will be a reboot before I finish this story. Hope you are all staying healthy, home and six feet apart.**_

* * *

_**Six**_

_**Chapter 4**_

When the alarm penetrated his dream, Reid's hand reached out automatically to silence it. But his fingers couldn't find the 'snooze' button, and the alarm kept sounding, forcing him to open his eyes.

_Wha….oh. _

He was both heartened at the rapidity with which he'd reoriented, and disappointed at the scene he'd reoriented to. He was still in his hospital room, and his hospital bed, and it wasn't his alarm clock seeking his attention, it was his phone. Which he was pretty sure hadn't been on the table beside his bed when he'd been talking to Rossi. But it was there now, and it was becoming insistent.

He swiped to answer the call, not bothering to try to read the screen without either glasses or contacts in place.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Kid! I was afraid you weren't going to answer for a minute there."

"Morgan? Is that you?"

"The very. How are you feeling?"

Reid had to take a moment to orient himself. He hadn't had his phone with him yesterday, he was sure of that, because he'd wanted to make a call. So how had it appeared next to his hospital bed, and how had Morgan known to call him?

_Scratch that, I'm sure he was one of the first calls Garcia made. But how did he know he could call me?_

He cleared his throat to recover his voice.

"Do you know how my phone got to me?"

"Your ph… oh, yeah. JJ said she was going to bring it to you."

"JJ was here?"

He heard Morgan chuckle to himself. "You know, it's been a long time since I've done police work, but I think my detective skills are still pretty good. I can tell from your voice that you just woke up. So, I'm detecting that, if JJ said she was going to leave your phone by the bed, and you woke up and found it there….yes, I think JJ has been there."

"Why didn't she wake me up?"

"Not a profiler anymore either, Kid."

"But…."

"I'm sure you can ask her when you see her again. Right now there's a question on the table. How are you?"

Reid was quick to answer, despite being in a hospital bed. "I'm okay."

"Reid, how_ are_ you?" The first answer obviously not satisfying Morgan. "C'mon, now. You know what I'm talking about."

Reid did know, just as he knew that Morgan had experienced his own survivor's guilt about the Boston incident, albeit from a distance. But he also knew that Morgan hadn't issued an order that had cost someone a life.

_Six someones. Six lives._

He was silent for so long that Morgan pushed him again.

"Reid, talk to me."

Wishing he'd been able to visit in person. Wishing that he'd thought to make it a video call. At least he'd have been able to see Reid's level of distress, rather than trying to read it through the absence of a response.

"Kid."

"I gave the order." Certain that Morgan had already been briefed, and would know what he meant.

On the other end of the call, a pent up breath was released. _Finally._

"From what I heard, you relayed information. The order had already been given. You just signaled to them when, based on what you'd been told."

"But…"

"Reid, you didn't create the situation. You were following orders yourself, weren't you?"

Which didn't turn out to be as comforting an idea as Morgan had intended. Because if Reid had been following orders, they would have come from only one person.

"It wasn't Emily's fault!"

"Whoa, there. I didn't say it was. But it wasn't yours, either, my man. You were all just working with the profile you had. Sometimes it's incomplete, and you adjust it as you go along. You know that, don't you?"

He heard a sigh on the other end of the call, followed by, "Intellectually, yes, I do. It's just…."

"It's just that six people lost their lives. I know. I get it."

A long silence ensued between them, as each man revisited the respective tragedies that seemed to follow such a hauntingly parallel trajectory. The silence was broken by Reid.

"You worked with him before, and after."

Not needing to identify 'him', nor the thing that had come after, and before.

"I did. So did you."

"Not in the field. I was just finishing at the academy when it happened. I didn't see what it did to him in the field. I just know that he couldn't come back."

"That was his decision, Reid. It wasn't a punishment." Then, thinking a moment, he added, "Are you worried about going back?"

He couldn't see the look of indecision on his younger friend's face, but he heard it in Reid's voice.

"I…. I don't know."

"You don't know if you're worried."

"No, I mean, I am worried. What I don't know is whether I can. Or, more to the point, whether I should. It might not have been my order, but it was my profile."

Morgan heard Reid's need to bear the onus of responsibility, and knew exactly why, and how, because he'd been there himself, often enough. He'd even been called out on it by Aaron Hotchner. He'd been accused of not trusting the rest of the team enough. In this moment, as he was about to tell Reid what Hotch had told him, Morgan had a sudden insight.

_All these years, and I'm just getting it. Hotch wasn't accusing me. He was teaching me. Encouraging me. _

As he was just about to do with Reid.

_Bet it doesn't take my little genius friend a whole decade to understand it, though._

"You know, when I was with the BAU, creating the profile was a team enterprise. Has that changed?"

"What? No! Nothing has changed since you left." _Except everything._

"All right, then. So you were all together out in the field?"

Reid pictured it. "Most of us. Not Emily."

"Okay, not Emily. And you laid out the facts as you knew them, and you all brainstormed, right?"

"There were things we didn't know…."

"There always are, aren't there? So then what happened?"

"What do you mean? We created the profile."

"'We'. The _team_. It was all of you who created the profile, wasn't it?" Not waiting for an answer to his rhetorical question, Morgan continued. "What happened after that?"

"After that, we made a plan. They all thought….." Reid caught himself up short.

_They._

"Where'd you go just now, Pretty Boy?"

Morgan was once again wishing he'd chosen a video call, so he could read his friend's body language.

"_They_ all thought that his mother was going there to kill him. But I thought she was too attached. I didn't think she'd be able to, and I was afraid he would see that, and it would give him the upper hand."

"And? Were you wrong?"

Knowing only that Lynch had escaped, but not how.

Reid thought it through, just as he'd done before he'd passed out in his apartment, and he reached the same conclusion.

"I wasn't. I know that now. But I didn't know it then. When it happened, I thought I'd read it wrong, that she'd actually gone there to kill both of them. If I'd known that, I would never have sent those agents forward. It would have been too dangerous."

"What made you change your mind about the profile?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, you thought she couldn't kill him, but then you thought you'd gotten it wrong, and that she'd gone there to kill both of them? Why did you think that?"

"Because the team found some new information…..an album of photographs of the two of them together, that demonstrated such a strong bond that the team thought it meant she wanted to die with him. But that wasn't right."

"No, it wasn't. But you couldn't have known that."

"But I should have. I should have seen it. It didn't have to mean what they thought. My mom has a scrapbook of my life, mine and hers together. She knows she won't be around to see how the rest of my life unfolds. But she's not exactly trying to take me with her."

"Maybe that's because you're not exactly a serial killer. Listen, Reid, you can't compare your situation with Lynch's. And you can't blame yourself for trusting the judgment of the team. It's proven to be pretty sound judgment in the past, hasn't it?"

"It has."

"And this isn't the first time a profile has unfolded over time, is it?"

"No."

"And, in the end, your profile was right. That means you've still got it."

"So why are those six people dead?"

"Because it happens. That's it, it's that simple. You did what you always do, and 99 percent of the time, it works out for good. This time it went wrong. No one is at fault about this except Lynch."

Reid was quiet for a long minute. A very long minute.

"Do you think this is how Gideon felt?"

Morgan wasn't quite certain how to answer.

"I don't know. But I can tell you how I felt. I was supposed to have been with them, but I'd been subpoenaed to court. So I missed the raid. And I thought….._all _I thought….was that, if I had been there, maybe something I did would have saved them. Maybe I'd have been first through the door, and realized. Maybe I'd have changed the timeline somehow, given them time to defuse it. Hell, maybe I'd have been able to defuse it myself."

"You couldn't know that."

"No, I couldn't. But that didn't stop me from obsessing about it. I kept feeling like it wasn't supposed to have happened, like there was some alternate reality that I could still reach, if only I could think it through. I'm tellin' you, Kid, I was making myself a little crazy. I can only imagine how it was for Gideon."

"He gave the order, too."

Morgan closed his eyes in frustration, realizing he'd not quite moved the needle with Reid.

"You're not Gideon, and Gideon wasn't you. He wasn't anything like you. You remember him. He was brilliant, gifted, even. He could out-profile everyone, including Rossi. But he was also impulsive, and maybe a little more arrogant than was good for him." _Or anyone else._ "That's why Hotch was made unit chief, afterward. Not to stifle Gideon, but to make him more reasoned. Or to make the team's actions more reasoned, I guess."

"I can be impulsive. Just ask Hotch."

"I don't need to. I was there, remember? Every single time. And, yeah, you can be impulsive. But you're not the unit chief. And I'm pretty sure that, even if you were, you would always look for consensus before acting."

"That's what I did. I told them what I thought, and they agreed with me, at least until they found that album."

"That's because they respect you, Kid. And they know that you respect them. Listen, I'm going to say it again. We do what we do to the best of our abilities, but we are human beings trying to keep the bad guys….also human beings….from hurting people. It's a noble cause, but sometimes things go wrong. Doesn't mean we should stop, does it?"

Reid chose not to point out that Morgan had, technically, stopped, the very night his son had been born.

_Because he's still working for good, even if he's doing it one child at a time._

Aloud, he responded to Morgan. "It doesn't. And I get it. I shouldn't give up, because I bring something to the team. I guess….I'm going to have to work on it a little bit. Make some decisions."

It was all Morgan could ask for. Only Reid could live his life. Only Reid could ultimately decide where his heart was. Which reminded Morgan.

"Hey….what did I hear about someone called Max?"

Now, more than ever, he wished he could see the look on his younger friend's face. Instead, he had to settle for hearing Reid clear his throat.

"Max….is someone I met in the park one day. She teaches art history, and she just got a position at the Smithsonian."

Many miles away, Derek Morgan grinned.

"And?"

Reid chuckled to himself, feeling paradoxically shy and yet eager to share his good fortune with the man he thought of as his brother.

"And she's smart, and she's fun. And she's pretty."

"And?"

"And, she likes me, in spite of everything." Certain that Morgan would have heard about the Cat Adams fiasco.

"What's not to like? So, is it serious? Did my Pretty Boy finally find 'the one'?"

There ensued a long silence, into which Reid spoke.

"Did you hear that JJ blew up the jet?"


	5. Chapter 5

_**A.N. Things are starting to open up out there. Enjoy, but stay alert, aware and physically distanced. This isn't going away for good until we have a proven vaccine. Delayed gratification isn't a bad thing.**_

* * *

_**Six **_

_**Chapter 5**_

It was beginning to be a thing, he thought, that each time he should fall asleep, he should awaken to another of his team members.

_Even if they're not all still on the team._

Reid reflected on his call with Derek Morgan, and how easily they'd fallen into their old rhythm of conversation, and how grounded he felt after talking with him. Once upon a time, Morgan had embodied everything Reid had come to be wary of, after what had seemed a lifetime of bullying. But the alpha male had proven to have a streak of empathy, a keen intelligence, and enough humility to truly listen to his younger colleague, and thus had been borne one of the deepest connections either of them had ever experienced.

In fact, for Reid, it had proven validating in a completely unexpected way. He hadn't tried to be anyone other than himself with Morgan, hadn't had to morph himself to fit in, hadn't had to prove his worth. He'd simply been accepted. In truth, he'd been met more than halfway, and that was one of the reasons he loved his former colleague.

Which didn't mean that Morgan hadn't still been willing to call him out, from time to time. The honesty between them was one of the things Reid treasured about their relationship, and the fact that Morgan had never coddled him had always been seen by Reid as a mark of respect.

Still, as much as he had been glad for Morgan's encouragement, the person Reid most wished he could hear from was Gideon. Only the man himself could speak to the burden of guilt he'd carried, and the way he'd carried it, and what he had let it do to him.

_Not that he would. I mean, back then, I guess I didn't expect him to. I was very much the student, and he was very much the teacher. It wasn't the relationship we had. But, maybe, if he'd stayed….._

If he'd stayed, maybe their relationship would have had more of a chance to evolve. Maybe Gideon would have opened up to him, as much as he ever opened up to anyone. Reid remembered, word-for-word, the letter Gideon had left to him, to explain why he'd abandoned the job, and how the most important words had been the ones between the lines. Every time he recalled them, he heard them in Gideon's voice.

"_I guess I'm just looking for it again. For the belief I had back in college. The belief I had when I first met Sarah and it all seemed so right. The belief in happy endings."_

They were Gideon's last words to him, and they held no wisdom for his present dilemma. Or maybe they did.

_That was the first mention he'd made of Sarah since her murder. He was never the same after that. He doubted himself in a way that I had never seen before. _

In a way that he hadn't appeared to do, after Boston. That's what struck Reid, in the moment.

_He got lost. He said he was looking for something he couldn't find. A belief in happy endings. He mentioned Sarah, and how she'd made it all seem so right. Without her, he couldn't make it right at all. _

It didn't take much of a search for Reid to find parallels with his own life. Like Gideon, he'd lost the woman he'd loved to a mentally ill murderer. As with Gideon's loss of Sarah, Reid's loss of Maeve had rocked him on his foundation. And yet, unlike Gideon, Reid had found equilibrium again.

_Maybe if he'd stayed with the team, the way I did, maybe he would have found himself again. _

Which thought sent Reid into a rumination on exactly how and why he'd managed to stay with the team, back then. He'd been so shattered, and so rudderless, for weeks after he'd lost her. But his friends had reached out to him, repeatedly. He'd not even been cognizant of it, in the beginning, and after that, he'd had to actively ignore them. But they'd been too insistent, and his sense of loyalty had been too great.

_But not just to the team. I wasn't just being loyal to the team. I was being loyal to the job, to the people who needed our help. I knew I still had something they needed, that no one else could give. _

And thank God that knowledge had brought him back, both to the job, and to the people who cared so much about him. He'd always thought of himself as a loner, and in many ways, he was. But relationship had snuck up on him, and tethered him to the very people who had kept him tethered to himself, in that turbulent time of his life.

_Gideon never let himself be tethered at all, except maybe to me. And he knew well enough how to cut that connection, and take off. I wouldn't have a clue how to do it._

Not after the depth of relationship he'd formed with many of the others on the team. He rarely even thought of them that way anymore….as team members. They'd become friends, and family…..and more, and he couldn't even conceive of walking away from them.

_I had enough of a taste of it when I was at Milburn. And I found out I'm not as much of a loner as I thought._

Which point had been brought home especially well in recent weeks. Even if there hadn't been those several exchanges with JJ, even if he'd not found himself begging her to stay alive, to stay in his life…..even if not for those things, there had been that other, unexpected, remarkable, exciting thing that had happened. He'd met someone. And she'd 'met' him back. And suddenly, 'relationship' had begun to take on a new context.

He was just beginning to wonder if he should call Max when the phone that was still in his lap sounded again. For a second, he thought it was she, but there was only a number on his screen, and not a name, and she'd long since been worthy of a name on his screen. Reid's recovering brain ran through the area codes that were filed away in some obscure corner, and he realized that the call had to be from a government-issued phone. So all he could do was to answer.

"This is Spencer Reid."

"Good. I hope the fact that you're answering your own phone means you're doing as well as I was told."

It took Reid only a split second to react to the voice.

"Hotch?"

"How are you?"

"I'm…I'm fine. Well, maybe not fine, but I'm awake. Obviously."

There was a smile in the former unit chief's voice as he responded.

"Obvious or not, I'm glad to hear you're recovering."

If he hadn't just had a brain injury, Reid's mind might have parsed the situation more rapidly. As it was, he was slowed by a few seconds, but he still made the leap.

Hotch hadn't contacted him after his ordeal in prison, but Scratch had still been in the wind at that time. He hadn't contacted him directly after he and Garcia had been kidnapped, though he was aware that Hotch and Rossi had spoken about it.

_But he's contacting me now. Is it because I was hurt? Or because…._

Or because Aaron Hotchner had never quite relinquished the role of mentor to Spencer Reid. And he knew that, who Reid needed more than anything else at the moment, was his mentor.

"Reid?"

Reid shook himself back to the present, and immediately regretted it. His head was pounding.

"Uh…sorry. I'm still here."

"So, again. How are you?"

The younger man took a long moment trying to decide.

_How am I?_

He'd been assured by Emily that the order hadn't been his to give. He had a hazy memory of JJ saying something similar. And Morgan had just done his best to convince him that he'd done things by the book, that the decision hadn't rested solely in his hands.

_But what happens when 'the book' is wrong? _

So he gave the only honest answer he could.

"I…..I don't really know how I am."

Hotch took his own pause before responding. "Welcome to the club."

"Are you saying…"

"I'm saying that I've had to learn to live with regrets, just like you're going to have to do."

In true paradoxical fashion, Reid was relieved by his friend's words. Here, at last, was someone willing to let him own the thing for which he felt most guilty.

"Everyone else has been telling me it wasn't my fault."

"They're right. It wasn't. But that hasn't kept you from owning it, has it?"

Reid shook his head again, slowly this time, and then realized that Hotch couldn't see.

"No, it hasn't."

A few thousand miles away, Aaron Hotchner took a deep breath. For the sake of someone he greatly respected, and for whom he had genuine affection, he was about to revisit the single most painful fact of his life.

"Someone we both know very well once gave me some wise words. A felon had threatened to harm innocent people, unless I made a concession. I refused to give in to him, and he followed through on his threat. Several people lost their lives."

A quick rifling through his mental filing cabinet brought Reid to the case, and he felt stricken. He'd 'seen' this particular felon only yesterday.

"Foyet."

Mirroring his younger friend, Hotch nodded, and then realized a verbal response was called for.

"He blew up a bus crowded with passengers, and I was convinced that I could have stopped him, if only I'd made a better choice."

"But, Hotch, you weren't responsible for anything Foyet did!"

Fully aware that they were both remembering what _else_ Foyet had done.

"That's what Rossi said. He reminded me that it was Foyet who was responsible, and that the best thing I could do was to catch him."

Which had happened, but not until Foyet had accomplished the most devastating crime either of the men on the phone could remember.

A long silence ensued, as each of them revisited the events of the past, both near and distant. Finally, Reid emerged to answer.

"I know I'm not responsible for what Everett Lynch did. I know it cognitively. But here…." His palm on his chest….."in my heart? It's like a weight, inside my chest. Six people didn't get to go home to their families because of an order I gave. Even if I just transmitted it, it was still my voice that sent them in there."

"But it wasn't you who set off the blast. Are we clear on that?"

"I know that. Just like you knew you didn't put a bomb on that bus. But you still felt the guilt of it, didn't you? Isn't that what you just told me?"

The older man conceded. "I did. But Rossi was right. I felt guilty because I assumed I had the power to stop him. It was hubris. I never had that power. And you didn't either."

Fifteen years ago, Aaron Hotchner would never have believed he'd have such parallel life experiences with the young genius Jason Gideon had recruited to the BAU. But both men had been single-minded in the pursuit of serial killers. Both men had lost the woman they'd loved to one of those killers. And now they both shared in bearing unwarranted guilt for the deaths of innocent others.

"I saw him."

Having been lost in memories of the past, it took Hotch a moment to register Reid's words.

"You saw….who did you see?"

Pause. "I saw…I saw Foyet." Hurrying to add, "It was in the 'in-between'. When I was unconscious. I had…..it was more than a dream….I had an experience, I guess. One of the people I saw there was Foyet. He spoke to me."

It was only through years of practiced control of his emotions that Hotch managed to suppress a gasp.

Or maybe, not quite.

"Hotch? Are you all right?"

George Foyet's former nemesis swallowed back bile. "I'm fine."

In his hospital room, Reid's recovering brain began to process the obvious subtext to this most recent exchange. He knew Foyet had changed the trajectory of Hotch's life, just as he knew that Hotch had ended that of Foyet's life. Still, it felt like there was something more….

So he ignored Hotch's assurance, and pressed his question. "What is it?"

There persisted a long silence as Hotch gathered himself.

"I saw him, too."

Now the silence was on Reid's end. He wondered if he'd heard correctly.

"You…did you say that you saw him, too?"

"When I had that emergency surgery. You remember…"

Reid absolutely remembered. They'd been in the middle of briefing on a case when their unit chief had collapsed, and all of them had found difficulty in concentrating on the task at hand.

_Not unlike when we were called out after Haley's funeral._

And both episodes had occurred because of damage inflicted by Foyet.

"How…..are you saying you had your own 'in-between' experience?"

"Something like yours, I think. It didn't feel like a dream, but I knew it had to have been, because there were so many strange things that happened."

"That's how it was for me, too. I was in the BAU, but it was like no one could see me. The only person who talked to me was Director Strauss, until somehow I ended up in my apartment with Foyet. It was like an out of body experience, because I was looking at myself lying on the floor."

"What did Foyet want?" Feeling strangely in need of the information.

"He didn't want anything, except to taunt me, which is what he did. But then….then I saw Maeve. She was in my apartment, just sitting on my couch."

The parallels were striking. Reid had seen the person Hotch considered the embodiment of evil, and he'd also seen the woman he'd loved, and lost. As had Hotch.

"It was …I almost didn't want to go back, you know? I mean, actually didn't want to go back. But then she made me see how much I have in my life that's worthwhile, and all of the things that I love about living, and the ways I still have to contribute…and the next thing I knew, I was back."

More parallels. Hotch had wanted to stay with her, but Haley had shown him all of the things that were still precious in his life. Still, he hadn't wanted to leave her, and she'd virtually pushed him back into time.

Still as taciturn as ever, Hotch didn't choose to share the details of his own experience. But he did ask a question, in an overt acknowledgement of his respect for Reid's wisdom.

"Why do you think Foyet was there?"

Again, needing to know. It had been years since his 'in-between', and he chewed on it endlessly. And still, he hadn't yet digested all of it.

Although he was still unraveling his own experience, Reid did have a theory.

"I think the whole thing was something like in Dante's Divine Comedy, where he's escorted through heaven and hell and purgatory. But I figured that happened to me because, you know…medieval literature. It's been ingrained in me, since my childhood. Still, if it happened to you, too….maybe not."

He couldn't see Hotch's smile, but he knew it would be there. Hotch was more of a non-fiction history kind of guy.

Hotch went with Reid's theory. "So, are you saying Foyet was there as my escort through hell?"

"That's the only thing I can come up with. For me, he's the embodiment of evil. You know me, I can always find a place where someone lost their footing in life, or some reason why they've done the things they've done. I've never been able to do that with Foyet."

That sounded reasonable enough to Hotch, considering the unreasonableness of this entire conversation.

"And Haley?" Forgetting that he'd not shared that part yet. "Was she my escort through heaven?"

Now it was Reid's turn to be struck by the parallel.

"Haley was there?" Not wanting to be intrusive, but needing to know. "Did she send you back, too?"

"She was there, and ... I will never understand this, but she was friendly with him."

"With Foyet?"

"Like nothing had ever happened between them. Like none of it mattered."

Reid was quiet a moment, before offering a thought. "Maybe it _doesn't_ matter, there. Maybe we learn how to let go."

Across the country, Hotch closed his eyes in silent prayer. _ Please let me learn how to let go._

"I can only hope so."

Reid returned to his question. "Did Haley send you back? Was it like it was for me, with Maeve?"

"She sent me back. I'm remembering more of it now. We weren't in the BAU or our home. We were in some movie theater, watching films of Jack, and Beth. And the marquee read, 'Decisions, Decisions'."

Reid pondered that for a moment, then sighed.

"I'm not sure I actually decided. It was almost like Maeve decided for me."

"And Haley, for me. Maybe they know something we don't."

"Maeve showed me that there was more here for me to do, and more for me to live."

"That was pretty much the message I got from Haley. I'm thinking maybe we should listen to them."

Reid chuckled. "It's not like we have any other choice, right? So I guess I'll have to see what else there is for me to do."

Which reminded Hotch of something else about which he'd been briefed. If their lives continued to prove parallel in this regard as well, then there was a bit more advice for Hotch to share.

"Forgive me if this is too personal, but…..did I hear that you may have met someone?"

The short pause before Reid's response was telling.

"Um….well, yes. I met someone. In the park. We're still getting to know each other, but…"

"Do you mind if I ask if Maeve gave her approval? While you were in the in-between?"

Miles away, Reid shook his head. "We didn't talk about her. Not at all. I didn't tell Maeve, and she didn't bring her up."

Hotch took that in. Haley had seemed to know about Beth, and she'd approved. And still he hadn't wanted to leave her. He wondered if Reid had felt the same.

"Did seeing Maeve change the way you feel about….what is her name?"

"Her name is Max. And…. I don't know. To tell you the truth, Hotch, I don't know how I feel about having a relationship right now. I mean, I really like her, she's great, and I like spending time with her. But sometimes I think...there's been a lot...there's just been too much going on…"

Cutting himself off there. He couldn't very well tell Hotch about JJ.

"I think I might need to just take a deep breath for a little bit."

"Understood. I just thought I would ask, because my experience was different. Haley encouraged me to move on with Beth. She said I needed to live my life with the people who were still in it. So that's what I've been doing."

"You think Maeve would have said the same thing to me?"

"Didn't you say she asked about the things that you love? It sounds to me like she wanted you to have happiness."

In the context of this conversation, it struck Reid that he hadn't mentioned Max at all, when he'd told Maeve the things that he loved. Nor JJ.

"I hear you. I guess I still have a lot to figure out."

"Well, the first thing you need to do is heal, and it sounds like you'll have some time to do it. Emily said the team would be standing down for a while. You've all been through quite a bit."

"Did she tell you anything else?"

"Such as?"

"Why we're standing down?"

"I assumed it was for you and Rossi to heal, but she wasn't specific. All she actually said was that it would be a while before you all went wheels up."


	6. Chapter 6

_**A.N. Wasn't sure at the outset, but there is a kind of symmetry in having six chapters to a story that goes by the name, so this will be the final one. **_

_**Depending what part of the world you're in, or even what part of the USA, the pandemic is either raging, waning, or lying in wait. Be vigilant. Be smart. Be consistent and persistent, and insistent that your friends and family be the same. Be patient. You can do this. It's not forever, it's for less than a year. Unless we don't do what we need to do. In that case, it's forever.**_

* * *

_**Six**_

_**Chapter 6**_

He'd once asked his mother if he'd had temper tantrums as a child, and she'd actually smiled at the memory.

"A temper tantrum is the last employable tool of the child who cannot communicate with words. You had one memorable one at about eight months of age. After that, you were entirely verbal. You didn't have tantrums….you _argued_."

They 'd both shared a laugh at that, but he wasn't laughing now. He felt like he was about to have a temper tantrum, unable to express in words the things he wanted to express, mostly because the person he wanted to express them to had made herself scarce. He was going on day three in the hospital, nearing his time of discharge, and he still hadn't seen her.

He was pretty sure he knew why, because she was nearly as good at assuming unearned guilt as he was. And he was certain she felt guilty about having left him home alone after the explosion.

_She should know better. She should definitely know me better. There was no way I was going to accept not being left to myself after having sent so many people to their deaths. She never had a chance._

And he was determined to tell her so. So he did the next best thing to putting out an all points bulletin, and called Penelope Garcia.

"Reid? Reid! OMG, I'm so happy to be talking to you and not about you! Do you have any idea how worried I was?"

"I'm pretty sure it came up when I was talking to Morgan."

Pause. "Oh, right. You didn't mind, did you? I mean, I thought he should know, and…"

Reid interrupted her. "It was fine, Garcia. Better than fine, actually. It was good. We had a good talk. Thank you for that."

He couldn't see her pleased smile.

"Well, good, then, I'm glad. You two should talk more often."

"We should. Speaking of talking, there's someone I haven't spoken with yet, and I was hoping to. Do you know where JJ is right now?"

Another pause, this one longer. "She's not here. I mean, you know the team is standing down, right? So she's not here."

He'd had time to interpret the pause. "Did she ask you not to connect me if I called?"

"Um…no! Of course not. She's just not here."

"But do you know where she is, and can you get her to call me?"

"You know I'm not supposed to track you guys."

Another attempt at deflection.

"Okay, then, will you please call her and tell her that I really want to talk with her? Please, Garcia. It's not good for either of us, and I think you know that."

He heard several deep sighs on the other end of the call.

"It was frightening, my dear, sweet genius. For both of us. Finding you on the floor like that. And then seeing you have that seizure…" Her voice reflecting her rising distress at the memory.

He heard it. "I'm sorry. I'm okay. There's nothing to be afraid of now."

"But…you had another one, at the hospital! And JJ had to leave, and….. it was very hard for her. It was very hard for both of us."

"Again, I'm sorry. I'm sorry you had to go through that, and I'm sorry you were alone at the hospital. Except for my mother, of course. Thank you for taking care of her, as well. I owe you a huge debt."

She shook her head, still unseen. "You owe me nothing. I'm just so grateful that you're going to be okay."

He pounced on the opportunity. "I'd like to make it okay for JJ too. Can't you please help me find her?"

It turned out to be the right argument to make. "I'll do better than that. I'll make sure you see her in person. Garcia out."

* * *

"Spence? Spence!"

_His mind had trouble deciphering what had thrown him to the ground, until he felt his body rocking back and forth with the force of the explosion. He heard JJ calling to him, but…..but….but he couldn't hear her, could he? He hadn't been able to hear her before…._

His brain was still befuddled by sleep even after his eyes were open. They took in the figure sitting by his bed, but….

_Where? What? Oh…_

Awareness came back slowly, especially in the wake of his brain injury. But he came to realize that he was still in the hospital, and that his best friend was sitting with him, finally.

"Hi." A croak.

She heard. "Do you want some water?" Already putting a straw in the cup by his bedside.

"I don't need a …."

"Here." She held it out to him, and he could do nothing but drink, obediently. Then he took it from her and put it back on the bedside table.

"Thanks."

"You were moaning." Eyes narrowed as she studied him for something about which she was certain he would not complain.

"I was?"

She nodded. "Were you having a nightmare?"

Perversely hoping so, because she so fervently hoped he was no longer in physical danger.

He shook his head slowly back and forth. "I don't remem….oh, yes, I do. Well, just the end. The explosion."

"You were reliving the explosion?" Another reason to worry.

"Just the end. Just when you were calling me. I couldn't hear you when it happened, but I heard you in my dream."

She smiled, just slightly. "More like you heard me shouting in your ear, just now. I've been trying to wake you up for the past five minutes. I was about to go and get the nurse."

"Why?"

He almost smiled at the blessedly familiar sight of her brows rising.

"Why? Because you just had brain surgery, and I couldn't wake you up! Spence…."

He raised a hand to stop her. "I'm fine. My brain is fine. I'm probably just tired from lying in bed all this time, and.."

The hand hadn't worked. "And….You. Just. Had. Brain. Surgery."

_Because I left you alone when I shouldn't have, and wasn't there to see that you were in distress._

He answered her as though she'd said the words aloud, ample evidence of just how well he knew her.

"You're right, I just had brain surgery, because I was too near to an explosion, and the chemical energy of the bomb transformed into kinetic energy and ruptured some of the small blood vessels inside my cranium." Willing her to look at him. "None of which had anything to do with you."

Her eyes shot up. "But I left you! I left you alone so I could drown my sorrows in wine, and…..and….."

He held her gaze with laser focus. "I remember everything that happened until I was in my apartment. And part of that memory is the fact that I pretty much ordered you to leave me alone."

She wasn't having it. "But I shouldn't have listened to you. I didn't have a concussion. Or worse."

"You honored my right to make my own decision. I would have been upset if you hadn't."

She thought it over. "Still….I should have checked in on you sooner, then. Maybe it wouldn't have gotten so bad."

He had to concede that one. If he'd had treatment sooner, he might have had less bleeding into his brain. But….

"The EMTs checked me out at the scene. They said my neuro exam was normal. You had no reason to think otherwise."

"But….but…I should have insisted they take you to the hospital there. Maybe they'd have done some tests or something."

Reid had already been through this with his neurosurgeon. He wouldn't have met criteria for testing until he'd lost consciousness.

"Dr. Kiyomura reviewed the records. She said she wouldn't have handled it any differently, given how short a time I was unconscious, and how far I was from the blast. She said it probably wouldn't have been picked up that early anyway."

JJ wasn't ready to let go of her guilt. "Well…well, then, I should have insisted that you come home with me, or that I stay the night with you. At least we'd have gotten you to the hospital right away. At least you wouldn't have been alone…."

Her voice broke with the final few words, and she had to stop. Of all of it, of the fright about his condition, and the near certainty that he would carry guilt over the lives lost, and the unfairness of it all…the thing that wouldn't leave her was that he'd been alone. That, no matter how much she cared about him, and _how_ she cared about him, and how much she worried about him, and how much the others did…..he'd been alone when he'd suffered the nearest threat to his life.

She'd always known him as a loner, of sorts, as someone set apart from the rest of society. At first, it had made her wary, and then curious, curious enough to get to know him. And getting to know him had made her happy, and warm, and just a little bit sad, at the idea that he should be traveling the world alone. And, ever so gradually, it had made her confused, both about what she felt for him, and about what she should or could do about it. She'd brought him into her family, so he would always have one. But she'd not been free to bring him completely into her life, and there had always been something holding her back about changing that.

_Like maybe the fact that I love my husband and my boys. _

So she'd tried to be happy for him when he'd seemed to have found someone new in his life. Someone who would help him feel less alone.

_But neither of us was there for you. You were just a solitary figure, lying on the floor, dying._

Reid watched the succeeding waves of memory and regret wash over her face, and marveled once again about how they'd never really needed words between them. He stretched out his arm, opening his palm to her in invitation. Not inclined to refuse him anything, she laid her hand into his. He squeezed his love.

"I wasn't alone."

"You were!"

He captured her gaze, and held it, and repeated himself.

"I wasn't alone."

"But….oh." Finally realizing what he meant, and just a bit perturbed by it.

He read her expression. "You spoke with Emily." A statement, not a question.

JJ nodded, still holding on to him. "She told me about your dream."

He shook his head. "It wasn't a dream. It was….an experience. Much more real than a dream."

Something about his tone... a contentment, even a hopefulness... settled her, and she felt the stiffness of anxiety leave her. JJ moved over, to sit beside him on the bed.

"Tell me?" As he'd told her so many stories, over so many years. It felt like coming home.

And so, he did. He told her about seeing Gideon, and Hotch, and Morgan, and Foyet, and Maeve. And when he was done, JJ heaved a great sigh.

"She let you go."

Reid thought about the wording, and corrected it. "It felt more like she was giving me permission. She helped me see that there were things I still loved in my life, and she gave me permission to love them. That it didn't mean I couldn't also love her."

"Couldn't."

"What?"

"You said that it didn't mean that you couldn't love her, not that you hadn't loved her. You do still love her, don't you?"

Reid responded matter-of-factly. "I always will."

JJ spent a beat on it, then gave a wry smile. "You know what? I'm glad about that. I mean, not about her not being here. But I'm glad you've had that kind of love in your life."

He knew what she meant. "Without restrictions."

She nodded, then spent another few seconds in reflection. "And she encouraged you that you could have that again, right?"

He thought back to his 'in-between' experience, his eidetic memory replaying every moment.

"She didn't say that exactly, but I think it was what she wanted me to understand."

JJ nodded again, intending to lead him to a place he'd had trouble reaching over the past few years.

"And it wouldn't mean you loved her any less, would it?"

Reid lifted his eyes to hers, in full understanding.

"No, it wouldn't." A smile slowly lifting the corners of his lips. "Are you sure you two have never met?"

JJ couldn't help herself. She laughed outright.

"No, Spence, we haven't. Although I wish we had. But you're only a mysterious genius from the neck up. The rest of us mortals can see your heart pretty well, because you wear it on your sleeve."

He smiled in admission.

"So.."

"So, you've needed to realize that you didn't have to let Maeve go, or to be let go by her. And now you've gotten there. Now you can move on to what's next. Or _who _is next."

_And we both know it can't be me. _

"Max?"

"Max, sure. She seems great, and she makes you happy. But if not her, then someone else. There's a big world out there, Spence. Who knows who might be waiting for you? Whoever she is, she'll be lucky to have you."

_I should know._

"Hmm." Pause. "So, are we okay now? You won't be avoiding me anymore?"

She gave him a sheepish grin. "I won't. If you won't carry unnecessary guilt about something over which you had no control."

He laughed. "First of all, I've been over that with Hotch, and he helped me. But, really, does everything have to be a bargain?"

She chuckled as well. "Sorry. Mom code. Always keep the upper hand."

"Remind me to have another talk with Henry when I see him."

"Saturday night, dinner. You up for it?"

He was. "As long as I'm discharged, and we don't have a case. Although Emily says the team will be standing down indefinitely."

Watching her carefully for a change in microexpression. But it came in a macroexpression, as red bloomed upward from JJ's neck to her face.

"Uh…um….I might have had something to do with that."

Reid kept his own microexpressions in check.

"What do you mean?"

"Um….well….I might have blown up the jet."

Reid let his brows go up. "You..._might_ have blown up the jet?"

"All right, I did blow up the jet. But I had a good reason."

He couldn't hold in a laugh, giving himself away, and she swatted at him.

"You knew, didn't you? Who told you?"

"Who didn't?" Then, more seriously, "Did you get in trouble? You still work for the FBI, don't you?"

Realizing he'd never thought to ask, and it would have been just like his friends not to tell him while he was injured.

"I do. I just have to pay it off over time."

"What?!"

"Gotcha!"

"Okay, you did. So, no fallout, then? I mean, it would only be fair, since you only did it to keep a serial killer from getting away." Then, thinking more about it. "You did, right? He didn't get away?"

JJ could only shrug. "The last I heard, they were still going through the remnants of the explosion, looking for evidence. But I can't see how he could have gotten away."

Neither of them had to say what they were both thinking. Lynch had survived the explosion that had put Reid in the hospital, and killed six of their colleagues.

JJ simply added, "Yeah, I know. Rossi knows, too, so we're both a little on edge about it."

"I guess that's par for our course." As it had been, countless times before.

The two best-friends-and-something-more sat together in comfortable silence, hands still entwined, thoughts equally so. There was so much shared history between them, but neither knew if there would be a shared future. It felt like things were changing, and those changes had taken on a degree of momentum.

Last year, Rossi had nearly lost his life to this unsub, and he'd nearly lost his wife just a few days ago. It would only be right if he decided to retire a second time from the FBI and live on into his happily-ever-after. Emily was here for now, but her heart was in Denver. Now that she'd bought land there as well, what was to hold her in DC? And JJ had already been recruited to take over the New Orleans office. Was it just a matter of time before that happened? Even she didn't know. It all felt so tentative and uncertain, and much of it was out of their control. There was no point in mourning that which had not yet been lost. But they could cherish what they still had, and might never need to lose.

So they simply sat together and talked, and hoped, and remembered, and were grateful. No one ever knew what the future would bring. But they could sit still together in the present.

FINIS


End file.
